San Tomaso

Have a little walk in via Broletto, just long enough to get to the church of which we try to summarize the story. Unmistakable, it is instantly recognizable, marked by columns and pediment almost like a roman or a greek temple. Well, it is the neoclassical style, what you see is how long the 800 was added. It did not appear, but the San Tomaso church is a witness to several centuries. Surely here it is from the year 1000 presented with the full name of San Tomaso in Terra Mala, or San Tomaso in Cruce Sigerii, probably because it’s born as a private chapel of Sigerio family.

‘Terra Mala’ was the name by which it was known that the district’s area of Porta Comasina, but do not yet know for sure where it’s got this bad reputation. The legend says that once the priest refused to bury a man in the adjoining cemetery because the widow had no money to pay the function. Giovanni Visconti, informed, rushes to the little church and buries the priest into the pit prepared for the other deceased. This episode would give the name ‘Mala Terra’ (bad land), but it is only legend. Ancient Tracks in the church today are covered by the work of the seventeenth-century neoclassical building site of Meda and dated 1827 which sees the renovation of the façade by architect Arganini. As often it happens in Milan, just cross a door and be confronted with unexpected masterpieces. Here you can make the acquaintance of an altarpiece by Giulio Procaccini, dated 1610 and a statue of the Virgin that St. Charles had personally brought to St. Nazaro in Pietrasanta, missing church, but whose statue is preserved precisely in San tomaso since 1887. For a city that for the most seems to have nothing to tell …